Berzerk (Vectrex)
Background/gameplay Berzerk was a unique game at the time when it was released in the arcade for several reasons; for one thing, being a maze game, it had 64,000 mazes, which was a gigantic number for any game of any gaming genre back then. It was also one of the first games that had speech synthesis as well (costing $1,000 a word), which involved sassing the player when they didn't destroy all the robots in a maze, saying "chicken! Fight like a robot!", among several other brief phrases. The A. I. for the game was also a bit unique as well, as the enemy robots were stupid, shooting and running into each other or walls, which would result in them being destroyed. The player would also earn points for every robot destroyed, no matter if they or the robots caused their own destruction. If the player took too long to escape from a level, the indestructible Evil Otto nemesis would appear from wherever the player had originated from in a maze and bounce his way across the screen, through walls and robots alike. The fewer robots that remained, the faster Otto would travel. Also, the indication of a difficulty level increase would be apparent with the robots changing color. They would also fire faster and with more shots as well as the player progressed through the levels. The game involved the player(s) running their way through a series of mazes while destroying as many robots as possible; destroying all robots in a maze would result in a bonus. Touching any robot, explosion from destroyed robot or wall segment or being shot would cause them to lose a life, and once the player ran out of lives the game would end. The Vectrex version was released in 1982. Differences between versions Obviously there is going to be a difference in graphics, due to the majority of the Vectrex version being in vector (the original was in raster) and the robots look like octopuses, plus there is no visible change indicating the robots' difficulty level has increased since the Vectrex doesn't have color. The difficulty level in this port also isn't as high, due to the robots not being as aggressive as on the arcade original, the player can shoot several more shots at a time and the players' and robots' shots do not cancel each other out (although arguably this could make the game more difficult, depending on a person's opinion). Evil Otto also makes a bouncing noise as he travels, which was not included in the original, plus the player's shots will now pass through him; originally he could be shot (although not killed). There is also no voice synthesis in this version, there are fewer mazes, an extra life is awarded at 5,000 points, which on the original it was 7,000 (although that could be changed depending on the arcade operator's choosing), and robots can, at times, either partially walk through a wall segment until they get destroyed, or can totally pass through them unharmed. Easter egg In order to make the programmer’s initials appear, holding down buttons one, three and four on the controller once the player's last life is lost during the "GOT YOU HUMANOID" screen.